Zack Snyder has a problem; he has too much love for his source material. As he proved with 300, he’s the fanboy’s director, someone who will try as faithfully as possible to recreate shot for shot the graphic novels he is filming. This, as it turns out, is the problem with his latest effort Watchmen, based on Alan Moore’s iconic graphic novel. As Snyder has tried to absorb the leviathan into his film, not without some success, and has created a massive geekgasm of a movie, one upon which much hope was placed, but that could not possibly ever succeed in its mission.
It’s an alternate 1985. Nixon has just been elected to a third term in the White House, nuclear war is pretty much a certainty and America triumphed in Vietnam, mainly thanks to the help of the godlike Dr. Manhattan and amoral nutball the Comedian. Crime prevention was the province of a group of masked superheroes, the aforementioned two, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, super-brain Ozymandias and sociopath Rorschach. They, however, have now been outlawed and the Comedian has been murdered. Thus begins the movie, with Rorschach pursuing the murderers and the others trying to build some kind of life.
Continue reading ‘Film Review: Watchmen’
I should come clean now, at the start of this review, with a confession to one of my most heinous crimes against the movies. Sure it’s not as bad as never having seen any of the Godfather movies, or Apocalypse Now, or not liking Citizen Kane, but it’s fairly criminal. Slumdog Millionaire is the first Danny Boyle movie I have seen. I was too young for Trainspotting but have never caught up, 28 Days Later wasn’t my thing and Sunshine passed me by. On the evidence of Slumdog, I’ve been missing out and, if they are all as good as this, missing out big time.
Continue reading ‘Film Review: Slumdog Millionaire’
Edit: I realise this film has already been reviewed at willsfreeswim but it only came out in the UK last week, so there.
There is an argument that Clint Eastwood is exorcising old demons with the films he has been making recently. Unforgiven was about what happened when the Man with No Name got old and stale. Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima were a way for him to look at what war is really like, for both sides, not just the badass Nazi killers. In a similar vein, Gran Torino could be subtitled What if Dirty Harry Retired? It treads a similar path to the previously mentioned films, it looks at what happens to our heroes when they finally become old and stale, what happens when the values they lived by become old hat, conservative or offensive, and it’s none the worse for it.
Continue reading ‘Film Review: Gran Torino’
For this year’s Comic Relief I have volunteered to host the staff quiz at work, to raise money for the charity. I started thinking about the general construction of the quiz today, and several problems have arisen. Read on to observe the internal-social trauma that has unexpectedly come as a corollary to this task.
Continue reading ‘Quizzing About’
Once again only one day to go to Valentine’s and news from the Catholic Church that we should all be sending our love wishes to Saint Raphael, an angel, instead. Apparently, Valentine’s your guy if you already have a partner, and Raphael should help you out if you are a singleton.
I still find this to be a rather ridiculous celebration, but I am getting into the swing of things more this year. I bought a rose and everything. Wherever you are, have a good one.
Several news sources reported over the weekend on the case of Eluana Englaro, an Italian woman who has been in a permanent vegetative state since a car crash in 1992. Since that time her father has been campaigning for her right to die, in accordance with a wish she expressed to family and friends before the accident, when one of her friends was also critically injured.
A father’s plea: let my daughter die in peace
Italy Senate debates woman’s fate
Top Italian court clears way for death of Eluana Englaro
Continue reading ‘Italy Debates’
Rojo's Creative Crucible: A Nineteenth Century Chinese Opium Den
I have now been what could be classed as an adult for some time, and have written reams and reams of fiction and non-fiction about a myriad of topics. A lot of this old material still exists on various hard drives and I feel that some of it now deserves republication in some form. This is mostly because I don’t like to see what I regard as good stuff languishing unknown, only existing as a paper copy in some old file underneath my bed. Continue reading ‘Rojo to republish old material?’
The BBC has walked into yet another publicity nightmare over an editorial decision, this time as it refused to broadcast an appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee for aid in Gaza. The broadcast was rejected on the grounds that the BBC has a duty to be impartial.
The politics of this issue aside, people in Gaza now do need our help. The situation there, according to all reports, is monumentally bad. The broadcast, like civilians on both sides in the region, has been caught up in the politics. Our liberal guilt over the issue means we feel the need to help civilians but also to maintain our hypocritical standards of impartiality. Continue reading ‘BBC in Another Crapstorm’
Depressing news from Atlanta that
scientists are close to reducing the mental state of love to a biochemical chain of events
and that we could soon see drugs that help us to love again, or cheat less.
Continue reading ‘Love Potions?’
Fresh Cracks...